Hillary Clinton told a Canadian audience that she hoped the United States would elect a woman to the White House because it would send ‘exactly the right historical signal’ to men, women and children. She said women in politics need to ‘dare to compete’ and the nation needs to ‘take that leap of faith.’”

Nice sound bites but completely devoid of any substantive content.

In what way does a woman make a difference in taking an oath to uphold the Constitution? She either will or she won’t. What does a person’s gender have to do with keeping your word?

Americans and the world were all atwitter because the United States elected the first officially black president in 2008. (Bill Clinton was called “America’s first black president” by Toni Morrison.) So what has Obama’s blackness done in terms of keeping his oath to uphold the Constitution? Can we say that he has ignored it?

Color and gender shouldn’t have anything to do with being president.

In a country where everybody is black, what would a candidate’s color mean? Would electing a white man send the “right kind of signal”? And what would that be?

We’re beginning to see in sports that it matters who has sex with whom.

Homosexuality is the new “authentication” mark among athletes. First it was Jason Collins (whoever he is). Now it’s Phoenix Mercury basketball rookie Brittney Gainer who’s a self-professed same-sexer.

“In April Griner revealed she is gay, an announcement Griner says was an easy decision when she considered the large number of people her message could reach.

"‘I've heard people say, “Why do you need to say you’re gay, keep your personal life to yourself?” I say to them, “What about the kids who need someone to look up to?” I'm not trying to target whoever's complaining. I'm targeting the people struggling who need someone to set an example,’ she explains. ‘Just knowing that you can help somebody out, that's a feeling you can't express.’”

What does what she does sexually with whom have to do with basketball?

Why don’t we hear sports figures saying, “Hi. I’m an adulterer. I want to help other adulterers. They need someone to look up to. That’s why I’m announcing today that I’m a serial adulterer.”

I’m not against a woman running for president; I just don’t want Hillary Clinton to be that woman.

Her body parts don’t have anything to do with my decision; it’s her political and moral views that disturb me. It's the same with a majority of the members of Congress -- skirt or no skirt.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

The Clintons are getting the old band back together again for one last geriatric tour.Hillary 2016. Because 22 years of Clintons dominating the Beltway isn’t enough.
Her campaign slogan: “Vote for me. I am a woman. What difference does it make?”

Remember
that? Back in 2008? When she was the “inevitable nominee”? She was the
“most electable” Democrat running? She was the only one who could beat
the Republicans?

Didn’t exactly work out as advertised. But this
being the Clintons, there is no more shame in that than there is in the
incident with the intern, sketchy stories about cattle futures or
missing law firm records magically reappearing.

They’re not even
changing the talking points. Once again, the nomination is hers for the
asking. She is inevitable — again. It is time for a woman in the White House — again. She is the only electable Democrat in the mix — again.

She’s even picked up a Twitter handle and describes herself as a “glass ceiling cracker.” You go, girl!Deep
down, she’s got to be having flashbacks and night sweats thinking to
herself: “I have seen this movie before and I really didn’t like how it
ended.”

But what difference does it make? She’s Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The
last time, her exhausting quest ended with her defeated and broke. Then
she had to muster up the energy to dine on some seriously rancid crow
and become the single most visible employee of the man who had beaten
her.

He beat her because she had a history and he did not. He beat
her because she had made very public decisions that he had not faced.
He beat her because she supported a military action overseas that he was
able to blithely campaign against. In the end, he beat her because
people wanted something new. They wanted change.

What difference does it make? In that case, it was the difference between winning and losing.
So, what will have happened in eight years to make her not less, but more, appealing to voters? Absolutely nothing.

It is just eight years more of fraught Clinton
history. Eight more years of public decisions that will be mercilessly
picked apart. Eight more years further and further away from being
something new. She will be a calcified statue representing the very
opposite of change.

She will be forced to answer endless questions
about the deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi. We will see the endless
loop of her baring her teeth during a congressional hearing and angrily
shouting: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Cruelest
of all: She will be blamed and pay the political price for every single
unpopular foreign military action the current president has launched
during his tenure. She got beaten last time for being a war hawk. She’ll
get beaten this time because President Obama became the drone-loving
war hawk he had campaigned against.
In 2008, Mrs. Clinton cut an ad showing children asleep. The phone at the White House rings at 3 a.m. announcing some serious national security threat. The narrator intoned: “Who do you want answering the phone?”
Without mentioning Mr. Obama’s name, it was a bid to paint his lack of world experience as a frightening liability.
Well, Mrs. Clinton
certainly does not share any such liability. But eight years on, we now
know exactly what she will say if she ever does have to answer that
phone at 3 a.m. in the White House.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement
through a spokesman Tuesday that claimed total ignorance of rampant sex
crimes and cover-ups occurring on her watch that were alleged in an
Inspector General’s memo reported by CBS News and the New York Post.

The IG memo, dated October 23, 2012, contains
shocking allegations of overseas criminal conduct by State Department
officials including sexual assault , ‘endemic’ procurement of
prostitutes (including children), and drugs—all of which were alleged to
have been covered-up by various officials at the highest levels of the
State Department including Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills.

CNN reported Clinton spokesman Nicholas Merrill issued a written statement saying, "We learned of it from the media and don't know anything beyond what's been reported."

Clinton would have the American people believe that she was
completely out of touch about the lawlessness at her department during
her four year tenure as Secretary of State.

For her statement to be true, Clinton would have to not know that
members of her protective detail were disciplined and reassigned away
from her for having sex with prostitutes in hotels she stayed at in
foreign countries including Russia and Colombia; that a 2008 bundler to
the Obama campaign appointed ambassador to Belgium was brought home for
questioning about allegations by his security detail that he repeatedly
ditched them to have sex with underage prostitutes in a Brussels park
known for boy prostitutes; that a security official was accused of
sexually assaulting foreigners hired as guards in as many as four
nations; that her chief of staff squelched an investigation of a nominee
to be ambassador to Iraq; that a drug ring supplied State Department
security contractors in Baghdad and that the State Department involved
shooting deaths of four Hondurans, including two pregnant women, was
blocked by a high ranking State Department official. (This new scandal
from the IG memo was reported Wednesday by the New York Post.)
Howard Gutman, the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium named by the Post as the ambassador accused in the IG memo of picking up underage prostitutes, issued a statement Tuesday vehemently denying the allegations:

"I am angered and saddened by the baseless allegations that have
appeared in the press and to watch the four years I have proudly served
in Belgium smeared is devastating. I live on a beautiful park in
Brussels that you walk through to get to many locations and at no point
have I ever engaged in any improper activity."

CNN reported Gutman claimed to his bosses at Foggy Bottom he frequented the park to get away from his wife.

The ambassador went to Washington and was asked what he was doing
and he denied any wrongdoing, the source told CNN. The ambassador
explained that sometimes he fights with his wife, needs air and he goes
for a walk in the park because he likes it.

Gutman probably could have stopped after the first sentence of
his statement. His neighborhood park is Brussels's Parc Royal
Warandepark, where some of the alleged solicitations and ditching of
security took place, as the New York Daily News reported. He isn't
exactly wrong about it being nice, either — the royal park is bordered
by the BOZAR museum and Parliament.

Picturesque as the digs may be, according to a local report from
2010, the park is rumored to be a site of frequent homosexual and
underage prostitution. And in 2009, RTL reported on prostitution arrests
involving young boys and a policeman.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki repeatedly refused
to clear Gutman of the allegations in the IG memo when badgered by
reporters, who suggested Gutman retaining his post indicated his
exoneration. Psaki even refused to state that Clinton’s successor John
F. Kerry has confidence in Gutman.

QUESTION: First, has Secretary Kerry spoken to the Ambassador?

MS. PSAKI: Not that I’m aware of.

QUESTION: Does the Secretary have full faith and confidence in this Ambassador?

MS. PSAKI: Well, the Secretary is proud to lead, of course, a
Department of 70,000

dedicated men and women serving. He takes every
accusation seriously, as we all do. And I can assure you, as I just
said, that in any case, if there were documented evidence and action was
needed to be taken, he would be taking that action.

QUESTION: So you’re declining this opportunity to say, on behalf
of the Secretary, that he has full confidence in this Ambassador?

A longtime confidante of Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton who
reportedly played a key role in the State Department’s damage-control
efforts on the Benghazi attack last year is also named in accusations
that department higher-ups quashed investigations into diplomats’
potential criminal activity.

Cheryl Mills, who served in a dual
capacity in recent years as general counsel and chief of staff to Mrs.
Clinton as secretary of state, was accused of attempting to stifle
congressional access to a diplomat who held a senior post in Libya at
the time of the attack.

Now
she has become the closest member of Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle to
have her name appear in an internal State Department Office of Inspector
General memo at the heart of this week’s scandal.
The memo,
believed to have been based on anonymous complaints from rank-and-file
agents in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security that
arose during a 2012 inspector general’s review of the bureau, has sent
shock waves through Foggy Bottom since becoming public Monday.

At
its core, the document outlines a variety of cases in which high-ranking
department officials quashed internal investigations into accusations
of sexual assault, drug dealing, solicitation of sexual favors from
prostitutes and minors, and other improper activity against American
diplomatic personnel overseas.
The State Department has vigorously
criticized the memo. Spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki told reporters
repeatedly this week that the accusations are “unsubstantiated.”

A
spokesman for the inspector general’s office has called the memo a
“preliminary” document that triggered investigations into suspected
criminal activity and claims that earlier probes were blocked by State
Department higher-ups. Outside law enforcement specialists have been
called in to conduct the investigations.

With bipartisan pressure
mounting from lawmakers on Capitol Hill to ensure such claims are
investigated and resolved, Secretary of State John F. Kerry weighed in
Wednesday, saying he takes the investigative process “very seriously”
and that “all employees of this department are held to the highest
standards, now and always.”

“I am confident that the [inspector
general’s] process, where he has invited outsiders to come and review
whatever took place a year ago, will be reviewed,” Mr. Kerry told
reporters after meeting at the State Department with British Foreign
Secretary William Hague. “I welcome that, I think the department
welcomes that, because we do want the highest standards applied.”

Simmering
beneath the surface of the scandal, however, is a political ingredient
that some news reports suggest has to do with Mrs. Clinton’s potential
ambitions to run for president and with Republican hopes to use Benghazi
and other scandals against the former secretary of state.
It follows that the scandals would have to reach not only to anonymous State Department higher-ups, but to Mrs. Clinton herself.

That’s where Mrs. Mills comes in.
She
has worked as a Clinton loyalist for more than two decades, first as a
lawyer who helped facilitate Mr. Clinton’s transition into the White
House after the 1992 election. She was named White House counsel in the
Clinton administration and became a key litigator and public face of the
defense team during his 1999 impeachment and trial on perjury and
obstruction of justice charges related to a sexual-harassment lawsuit.
More
recently, working in Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle at the State
Department, Mrs. Mills made headlines in the aftermath of the Benghazi
attack for the pressure she reportedly put on Gregory Hicks, the former
deputy chief of mission to Libya, to be careful in his dealings with
Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee seeking answers about the attack.

During testimony
before the committee in May, Mr. Hicks revealed that he got an
aggressive phone call from Mrs. Mills after meeting with Rep. Jason
Chaffetz, Utah Republican, who had traveled to Libya on a fact-finding
mission about a month after the attack that killed Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Mr. Hicks testified
that other higher-ups at the department ordered him not to meet with
Mr. Chaffetz during the visit, but he ignored them. At one point, he met
with the congressman without a State Department attorney present
because the lawyer did not have a high enough security clearance to
attend the meeting. Afterward, the call came from Mrs. Mills, demanding
“a report on the visit,” said Mr. Hicks, who added that Mrs. Mills “was
upset” by the attorney’s absence.

Mr. Hicks suggested that the
call was serious because it had come from an official so high in the
State Department and so close to Mrs. Clinton. “A phone call from that
senior of a person is, generally speaking, not considered to be good
news,” he said.

The call may simply show how seriously Mrs.
Clinton’s uppermost staff members took the task of ensuring that
officials like Mr. Hicks had the necessary legal protections as the
Benghazi scandal unfolded.
But the attention given to Mrs. Mills —
along with Mr. Hicks’ comments about her call during a congressional
hearing on Benghazi — has made the appearance of her name in the more
recent internal OIG memo scandal all the more pertinent.

According
the memo, Mrs. Mills may have similarly attempted to block an
investigation last year into suspected misconduct by Brett McGurk, whom
President Obama had nominated to become ambassador to Iraq.
The
memo outlines how agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s
special investigations division had opened an probe into Mr. McGurk, who
was working at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad at the time, on suspicion
that had been improperly emailing government information with his
girlfriend, a Wall Street Journal reporter.

“Some of the
information may have been cleared for release, but other information
reportedly was not,” states the memo, a copy of which was obtained by
The Washington Times after it was first reported by CBS News.

Investigators
“never interviewed McGurk, allegedly because Cheryl Mills from the
Secretary’s office interceded,” the memo states. “Email from Mills
reportedly shows her agreeing to a particular course of action for the
case, but then reneging and advising McGurk to withdraw his name from
consideration for the ambassadorship.”

Mr. McGurk withdrew his name from consideration for the post last June.
His
case is just one of eight outlined in the memo and appears to rank low
in terms of the level of potential criminal behavior that was alleged.

State
Department officials remained vague this week about details of any of
the cases and refused to say whether any of them have been resolved
during the inspector general’s ongoing investigations.

In one
case, the memo states that an agent from the special investigations
division had opened a probe into the activities of Howard Gutman, the
U.S. ambassador to Belgium, and “determined that the ambassador
routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit
sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.”

“The
ambassador’s protective detail and the embassy’s surveillance detection
team (staffed by host country nationals) were well aware of the
behavior,” the memo states.

But as the agent “began to plan
surveillance on the ambassador to obtain corroboration, the agent
reportedly received notification that [Undersecretary of State for
Management Patrick] Kennedy had directed [the Bureau of Diplomatic
Security] to cease the investigation and have the agent return to
Washington.”
Mr. Kennedy issued a statement Tuesday saying he has
“never once interfered, nor would I condone interfering, in any
investigation.”

Mr. Gutman also issued a statement Tuesday, saying
he was “angered and saddened” by “baseless allegations that have
appeared in the press.”

“To watch the four years I have proudly
served in Belgium smeared is devastating,” he said. “I live on a
beautiful park in Brussels that you walk through to get to many
locations, and at no point have I ever engaged in any improper
activity.”

The ambassador’s denial appeared to represent the first
official acknowledgment of the various accusations of criminal activity
cited in the inspector general’s memo.

because surreptitiously-recorded audio from a closed-press event at
the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Manhattan have
Clinton offering some spicy-hot criticism of President Obama’s inaction.
As transcribed by Politico, Clinton spent a lot of time hammering Obama for being over-sensitive to public opinion polls:

His remarks came during a question-and-answer session
with McCain, who has been among Obama’s harshest critics over what he
calls a failure to take “decisive” action in Syria. Obama has come under
growing pressure to step up American intervention by sending military
and other assistance to the rebels.

“Some people say, ‘Okay, see what a big mess it is? Stay out!’ I
think that’s a big mistake. I agree with you about this,” Clinton told
McCain during an event for the McCain Institute for International
Leadership in Manhattan Tuesday night. “Sometimes it’s just best
to get caught trying, as long as you don’t overcommit — like, as long
as you don’t make an improvident commitment.”

[...] Clinton repeatedly said it would be “lame” to blame a lack of
intervention on opposition in polls or among members of Congress.

If Clinton had ever blamed a lack of action because “there was a poll
in the morning paper that said 80 percent of you were against it … you’d look like a total wuss,”
he said. “And you would be. I don’t mean that a leader should go out of
his way or her way to do the unpopular thing, I simply mean when people
are telling you ‘no’ in these situations, very often what they’re doing
is flashing a giant yellow light and saying, ‘For God’s sakes, be
careful, tell us what you’re doing, think this through, be careful.”
Clinton continued, “But still they hire their presid

ent to look
around the corner and down the street, and you just think – if you
refuse to act and you cause a calamity, the one thing you cannot say
when all the eggs have been broken, is that, ‘Oh my God, two years ago there was a poll that said 80 percent of you were against it.’ Right? You’d look like a total fool.
So you really have to in the end trust the American people, tell them
what you’re doing, and hope to God you can sell it” and that it turns
out okay in the end.

It’s not clear from Clinton’s remarks what he wants Obama to do in
Syria, exactly, but the boys in the Improvidence Battalion of the
Over-commitment Brigade will be glad to know he doesn’t want to put
their boots on the streets of Damascus.

Basically, Clinton thinks Obama should do something to balance out
the assistance the Assad regime is receiving from Russian, Iran, and
Hezbollah, “so that these rebel groups have a decent chance, if they’re
supported by a majority of the people, to prevail.” He made approving
references to Reagan-era assistance to the Afghan resistance against the
Soviet invasion. Bill Clinton is apparently a big fan of those
policies. It sounds like he doesn’t want to dwell on what happened next
in Afghanistan, which would seem very
pertinent to the situation in
Syria, where a lot of the front-line resistance troops are linked to
al-Qaeda.
Personally, I’ve been appalled by the human tragedy of Assad’s
struggle to retain power since the early days of the uprising, and the
international community’s belief it can address such outrages with
Strongly Worded Letters is a grim farce, but there are great dangers to
direct intervention. A glance at the terrorist-infested ruins of Libya
should remind us to be very careful about who we choose to equip with
those fantastic American weapons and training. There’s an unlovely but
honest strategic case to be made for leaving a weakened, exhausted Assad
in power after he beats the snot out of al-Qaeda, rather than
discovering the horrifying answer to the question, “What could be worse
for Syria than Bashar Assad?” There are counters to that argument, too,
but it’s a complex issue, made more difficult by the lack of good
options for effective U.S. intervention.

Leaving the specifics of the Syrian crisis aside, Clinton’s general
point about leadership and public opinion polls is interesting… but it’s
highly amusing for the master of “triangulation” – the man who
dedicated his last few years in office to an all-out effort at keeping
his poll numbers up, to avoid getting bounced out of Washington – to
portray himself as a fearless leader who doesn’t care about the
transient passions of the uninformed public.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Congress and the State Department’s inspector general are examining allegations that senior officials working under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton may have suppressed investigations into suspected criminal activity among U.S. diplomats abroad — including the alleged solicitation of prostitutes by an ambassador in Europe.

Lawmakers from both parties said the charges are “very serious” — and point out the need for a permanent inspector general at the State Department. A deputy inspector general has been active in recent years, but the department’s top watchdog post, tasked with investigating practices at roughly 260 embassies worldwide, has been vacant for more than five years.

That review uncovered complaints by some officials that they were not allowed to thoroughly investigate the allegations of criminal activity. As a result, the office of inspector general has hired independent law enforcement specialists to examine the complaints and the extent to which investigators within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security are being allowed the level of independence required to do their jobs effectively.

In addition to reviewing “eight allegations of criminal misconduct” that arose during the 2012 review, Doug Welty, a spokesman for the office of inspector general, said the office is “also looking into the allegations of quashing.”

Mr. Welty made the remarks as Undersecretary of State Patrick F. Kennedy issued a statement to reporters Tuesday saying he has “never once interfered, nor would I condone interfering, in any investigation.”

But Mr. Kennedy apparently made the statement in response to the CBS News report this week that insinuated that he was involved in suppressing an investigation into the activities of a U.S. ambassador accused of patronizing prostitutes in a public park.

The State Department has vigorously rejected the CBS report. A senior spokeswoman called it “preposterous” to claim the department would not vigorously investigate allegations of criminal misconduct.

Department officials have remained vague, however, about the details of the allegations in question.

As spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki refused Tuesday to confirm or deny whether a U.S. ambassador had been accused of patronizing prostitutes, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman emailed an abrupt statement to reporters, saying he was “angered and saddened” by “baseless allegations that have appeared in the press.”

“I live on a beautiful park in Brussels that you walk through to get to many locations, and at no point have I ever engaged in any improper activity,” Mr. Gutman said in the statement.

“To watch the four years I have proudly served in Belgium smeared is devastating,” he said.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Hillary?
That one-word question hangs over both parties as the 2016 presidential race comes into focus.

For Democrats, the former secretary of State looms over everything, a female Gulliver among Lilliputian rivals.

For Republicans, Clinton casts just as long a shadow, although in a
very different way. The notion of a woman who has been a bête noire
since the early 1990s extending Democratic residency in the White House
for three (or even four) consecutive terms is the stuff of conservative
nightmares.

“Doubts about the GOP as a viable force in
presidential elections will be far more justifiable if the party loses a
third straight presidential election,” said Kyle Kondik of the
University of Virginia.

In contrast to Clinton’s dominance among
Democrats, the battle for the GOP nomination is wide-open. Those who
appear to be readying a White House run are taking markedly different
approaches in terms of how they treat the Democratic frontrunner.

Some
potential contenders have set about proving, in ostentatious fashion,
that they are willing to attack the former first lady head-on.

Last
month, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke in the first-to-caucus state of
Iowa and lit into Clinton over last year’s attacks on the U.S.
diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were
killed.
“First question to Hillary Clinton: Where in the hell were
the Marines?” Paul said. The same morning, Paul had published an
opinion article in The Washington Times in which he had asserted that
Clinton “should never hold high office again.”

At a January Senate hearing, Paul had told Clinton that had he been president, “I would have relieved you of your post.”

Paul’s
speech at the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner was prefaced by
remarks from Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). “The process of selecting the
next leader of the free world begins in Iowa, and it’s already begun,”
King told the audience.

Going after Clinton scores big with the
GOP base and helps attract donors. But ripping her also poses risks,
especially when the Republican Party is trying to court female voters.

Still,
other possible GOP candidates have demonstrated their willingness to
lock horns with Clinton. During an appearance on Fox News last month,
Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) alleged there were political motivations at play
in the explanations initially given by the Obama administration for the
Benghazi attack.

“What I think is sad is how many people were
around the administration — including the former secretary of State,
Secretary Clinton — [who] knew this to be the case and allowed this to
move forward anyway,” he added.

Not everyone has adopted such a
confrontational stance. In January, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) suggested on
“Meet the Press” that a Clinton administration would have done more to
address the United States’ fiscal problems than Obama has done.

“Look,
if we had a Clinton presidency ... I think we would have fixed this
fiscal mess by now,” Ryan said. “That’s not the kind of presidency we’re
dealing with right now.”

(It was not wholly clear whether Ryan
was referring to Hillary Clinton or her husband, the former president.
But as a CBS News report noted, “it was eminently clear that he thought
both Clintons would be better fiscal stewards than Obama.”)

In
April, there were some murmurs of interest from the media when former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Clinton delivered speeches in Dallas on
the same day, albeit at different locations. But Bush took no shots at
Clinton, nor vice versa.

An even more high-profile match-up
occurs later this week. Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R)
will attend the Clinton Global Initiative summit in Chicago. Clinton
will speak on Thursday, Christie on Friday.
Christie has bolstered
his bipartisan credentials over the past year, most famously with two
high-profile joint appearances touring the Sandy-damaged Jersey Shore
with President Obama.

The Christie-Obama relationship has helped
the governor’s reelection chances this year, but it will hurt him in
states like Iowa and South Carolina if he seeks the 2016 GOP
presidential nomination.

Some in the GOP have a more specific
concern: If the ever-combative New Jerseyan found himself in a
presidential contest with Clinton, would he keep his temper under
control? And, if not, just how damaging could that be against a female
candidate?

When then-Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.) was Clinton’s
opponent in a 2000 Senate race, he attracted criticism for invading
Clinton’s personal space during a televised debate. It is easy to
imagine Christie doing or saying something much more aggressive.

Still,
some Republican strategists caution that it is important not to let
Clinton get too deep into the party’s collective head.

Asked if
her possible participation made it more important for the GOP to choose a
seasoned candidate, former Rick Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley
demurred.

“No. Barack Obama wasn’t seasoned and he took her apart,” he replied.

But
Gidley added, “Hillary Clinton is a force to be reckoned with. Any
Republican who says she’s going to be dead in the water because of
Benghazi, or because of Bill Clinton, or because of whatever: They are
sorely mistaken.”

There are, nevertheless, plenty of suspicions on the GOP side that Clinton will, indeed, be damaged by Benghazi.

“There
are still a lot of questions about how Hillary ultimately emerges from
the Benghazi investigation,” conservative strategist Keith Appell said.
“Everyone among conservatives right now is thinking about Hillary as
someone who could be in real trouble.”

Others point to the fact
that Clinton’s fortunes are tied to those of Obama, and to the country’s
economic progress between now and 2016.

If things are booming by
then, even the strongest GOP candidate would face an uphill battle. But
if the recovery fails to maintain a head of steam, public patience with
the Democrats could run out.
“If she chooses to run, she is
going to be awful tough to beat in the Democratic nominating process,”
said veteran Republican strategist Ed Rollins.

“Whether she is a
viable candidate in the general depends an awful lot on what happens to
Obama. One thing’s certain, though: If she runs, she will raise the
money and she will get the staff.”
One other thing is certain, too.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker visited Iowa recently to speak at a
well-attended Republican dinner, only one national political reporter
(NBC's Alex Moe) showed up. That just proves you don't need national
press attention to make a strong start in the 2016 Republican
presidential race
.
There's a Walker boom, or at least a boomlet, going on in the nation's
first voting state. When you hear speculation about the '16 GOP field --
Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and others -- it's
rare to hear Walker's name included in the group. But keep an eye on
him; politically-savvy Republicans certainly are.

Here's one way to test Walker's appeal. Talk to Iowa politicos who
supported Mitt Romney last time around, and then talk to politicos who
supported anybody but Romney, and ask what they think about Walker.
You'll hear a lot of positive things from both groups.

"He's the guy to beat in Iowa as it stands right now," says David
Kochel, who ran Romney's 2012 campaign in the state. In an email
exchange recently, Kochel, who is not working for any candidate at the
moment, ran down the list of Walker's strengths. The Wisconsin governor
is "a full-spectrum conservative who's comfortable with and speaks the
language of Iowa social conservatives," Kochel said. His showdown with
public-sector unions won him great admiration and a substantial
fundraising base among Republicans. He's a favorite of Iowa Gov. Terry
Branstad. And he has "real Tea Party credibility." Put it all together,
and it's a pretty strong resume. "I think Walker's ability to reach
across coalitions could be unmatched," Kochel said.
A similar assessment comes from an Iowan who worked hard to defeat
Romney. "Gov. Walker spoke in a very conversational tone, a very Iowa
tone, like an old neighbor," said Jamie Johnson, a GOP State Central
Committee member who was at the Des Moines event last week. "He
connected." And Johnson -- who strongly supported Rick Santorum in last
year's race -- notes that while Walker did well in Iowa's biggest city,
he will likely "connect even better in the God-and-guns counties."

Out in those God-and-guns counties, in western Iowa, conservative radio
host Sam Clovis calls Walker "a rock star." "He gets great reviews from
all who have seen him," says Clovis.

Here is the thing that really impresses Republicans looking for a
candidate: Scott Walker has done things. As part of the gubernatorial
faction in the 2016 field -- the list includes Christie and Jindal --
Walker not only has executive experience. He has used executive
authority to achieve a goal conservatives have pursued for years: to
break the hold public employee unions have on government in many states.
The result in Wisconsin has been millions of taxpayer dollars saved and
improved schools.

And Walker did it while going through the most intense trial by fire of
any politician in America in recent years. Democrats and their allies on
the left threw everything they had at him. They tried to stop him in
the streets, in the courts, in a recall election. He survived it all.

The senators who are potential candidates -- Paul, Rubio, perhaps Ted
Cruz -- don't have anywhere near that level of accomplishment.

So it was no surprise that Walker reminded voters in Des Moines that
governors get things done. "Reform happens in the laboratories of
democracy, which is our states," he told the crowd. "We've laid a
positive foundation to move Wisconsin forward, and people want to
continue down that path. We can do that nationally, as well."

Walker's appearance drew more people, and raised more money for the GOP,
than an earlier visit from Sen. Paul. But it attracted far less media
coverage. So far, he's still mostly flying under the radar.
But look for that to change. Walker is getting such good notices from Iowa insiders that outside attention will surely follow.

"Scott Walker has impressed me most," says Craig Robinson, of the
influential Iowa Republican blog. Walker's trip to Des Moines, Robinson
says, was all about laying a solid foundation for a possible candidacy.
"Other potential presidential candidates like Sen. Paul came to Iowa and
whaled away on the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton," says
Robinson. "That will get a standing ovation and elicit plenty of cheers,
but it really does nothing to paint a vision for where they want to
take the country. Walker provided Iowans a glimpse of the type of
national leader he would be."

After watching this video, I’m suddenly seized with equal portions of
nostalgia and amazement. Jesse Ventura returned last night to CNN, in a
long segment with Piers Morgan, and it’s almost like being in Minnesota
from 1998-2002 … and that’s not a pleasant feeling. Ventura tells
Piers Morgan that he’s considering a run for President in 2016, but
Ventura doesn’t get off to a good start on his campaign.
Morgan essentially dices him up on the issues, where Ventura says
more “I don’t knows” than Eric Holder in front of a House committee
these days. Morgan starts off each issue by having Ventura offer his
incredibly superficial opinion, challenges him on the basics, and then
watches as Ventura admits he doesn’t know much about it. The capper
comes on the Maryland v King decision yesterday on DNA samples
taken during bookings, which Ventura opposes because that should only
happen when people are arrested and charged, which is … exactly what a
booking does.

Be sure to stick around until the end, when Ventura explains why he’s suing the widow of a murder victim, too (via Twitchy):

In the 1990s, Eric Holder was known as a “fixer.” He was always
cleaning up for Bill Clinton’s controversial Attorney General, Janet
Reno.

Reno had a string of problems. You may remember some of them… Ruby
Ridge, Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing. All of these events caused Reno
serious headaches.

But Holder made sure the government suppressed any damaging info, protecting Reno and Clinton.
As a result, Holder became a hero in liberal circles. He was rewarded
for his loyalty by being named Barack Obama’s Attorney General.

How, during the second term of Barack Obama, Holder has lost his magic
ability to suppress damaging information. He needs a fixer of his own.
The sharks in Washington, D.C. are circling.
Blood is in the water.

The Untouchables
Until recently, Holder had the reputation of being as untouchable as Barack Obama.
But that ship sailed as soon as Holder signed off on the Department
of Justice’s (DOJ) surveillance of Fox News reporter James Rosen. To
make matters worse, Holder told Congress a totally different story… and now he’s hanging on to his job for dear life.

You see, the damning disclosure of the DOJ surveillance has raised
the ire of Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee. He’s recently launched a probe to see if Holder lied to
Congress under oath, which seems likely.

When the scandal broke, Holder told the committee that he hadn’t been
involved in any such surveillance of reporters. In fact, Holder’s exact
words to Congress were: “In regard to potential prosecution of the
press for the disclosure of material – this is not something I’ve ever
been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.”

But the record is clear. Holder did personally sign off on
just such a venture. At a minimum, Holder misled Congress. The Goodlatte
investigation will determine whether his misleading statements were
intentional.
And Holder’s involvement in DOJ’s tracking of Rosen isn’t his only
problem. He’s also dealing with the fallout from the secret subpoena of
Associated Press telephone records. The records the DOJ grabbed included
those of at least 20 AP journalists.

One knowledgeable friend called me to say that Holder is the John
Mitchell of the current Obama scandals. In case you don’t recall, John
Mitchell was Nixon’s Attorney General and was convicted in 1975 of
conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. He served 19 months in
prison.

The Power of the Press
Severe damage has been done to Holder. Even left-leaning news outlets
and personalities, who regularly defended Holder in the past, have had
enough. Some are even calling for him to leave office.

The Huffington Post ran this headline: “Time to go: Holder OK’d
probe.” Former MSNBC anchor and outspoken liberal Keith Olbermann has
called on Holder to resign or be fired by Obama.

You can expect Congress to be emboldened by the cheers from the media
as they take apart Eric Holder this summer. In many respects, it was
news organizations that brought down President Nixon. Now, given
Holder’s illegal intrusions on the media, that same institution will
likely end his career as well.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Senior Israeli media figures are
voicing outrage at a revelation this weekend that former U.S. President
Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a gala speech later this month in
honor of Israeli President Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday.

The commissioned speech at the Peres
Academic Center in Rehovot is expected to last 45 minutes, meaning each
minute is costing sponsors $11,111.

According to Israeli news accounts,
the large sum will go to the William J. Clinton Foundation which
focuses its efforts on a range of causes including economic, health,
leadership and environmental.

The Jewish National Fund paid the half-million dollar fee to secure the former president’s participation a year in advance, according to Yedioth Ahronoth.

The Jewish National Fund is known for
its tree planting campaigns, park planning and nature reserve
construction, which includes encouraging Jews around the world to buy a
tree in Israel. As TheBlaze reported
last year, it has also been the focus of pro-Palestinian activists who
accuse the organization of “war crimes” for its environmentally-friendly
activities in Israel which the activists consider to be on Palestinian
land.

Haaretz said the Jewish National Fund
had hoped “to generate positive PR for itself abroad − where
pro-Palestinian activists have been attacking the agency − by inviting
Clinton to speak on sustainability at its annual conference, while at
the same time introducing some of its biggest donors to Clinton. This
was in the hope of facilitating the JNF’s long-term fund-raising goals.”

The gala dinner drew further scrutiny
when former Member of Knesset Yossi Sarid revealed that each invited
guest was being asked to donate approximately $800 (3,000 New Israeli
Shekels) for scholarships distributed by the Peres Academic Center.

But after learning of the
event’s fund-raising ambitions, the chief of staff of the President’s
Residence, Efrat Duvdevani, sent a letter to the heads of the Peres
Academic Center in which she made it clear that Peres would not attend
the dinner if donations were solicited during the event.

The PAC [Peres Academic Center]
declined the offer by the president’s staff to cancel Peres’ attendance
to enable the fund-raising to go ahead; instead, the institution would
waive the ticket fee.

The Peres Academic Center issued this
statement, as quoted by Globes: “President Bill Clinton will be the
guest of honor at the special tribute which the center will hold in
Rehovot. The event at the Center’s campus will be held in the presence
of the President of Israel, ministers, and public figures. Belying
previous reports, it was decided that there will be no fundraising at
the event, and people attending will not be asked to pay for their
participation.”

While in Israel, Clinton is also
scheduled to take part in the President’s Conference in Jerusalem along
with other celebrity headliners such as Barbra Streisand, Robert De
Niro, Sharon Stone, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former
Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Noted political writer Edward Klein claims in his latest book that
Bill Clinton dismissed President Obama as inept and incapable of
performing the duties of the White House — but that he formed a secret deal to give him an endorsement for office anyway.

Mr. Klein’s book is called “The Amateur,” and it’s published by Regnery.

The
deal was this: Mr. Clinton would endorse Mr. Obama for the White House
in 2012 if Mr. Obama would endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton for president
in 2016, the book claimed.

At the same time, Mr. Clinton wasn’t
completely happy about the deal — he would have preferred his wife
challenge Mr. Obama for the White House in 2012, Mr. Klein’s book
claimed.

In
the book, Mr. Klein writes that several sources attributed Mr. Clinton
as saying: “I’ve heard more from Bush, asking for my advice, than I’ve
heard from Obama. I have no relationship with the president — none
whatsoever. Obama doesn’t know how to be president. He doesn’t know how
the world works. He’s incompetent. He’s an amateur.”

Nonetheless,
Mr. Clinton ultimately endorsed Mr. Obama for a second term — at the
pushing of political adviser David Axelrod, who was watching Republican
challenger Mitt Romney’s rising poll numbers with alarm, Mr. Klein said
in his book.

Mr. Klein has previously penned books about Mrs. Clinton and the Kennedys, and is a former foreign editor with Newsweek.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

A little history lesson never hurts when you want to know why you feel the world is moving, strangely, about you. It is the Fabian Socialists hammering the globe into their new model of corporate socialism.
They have been working on it since the days of Pres Woodrow Wilson.
Hillary tried to get them to rally to her side with her clarion call, so
she could be President. But the “clean articulate” Obama beat her to the punch.
The individual must go, be squashed into submission. Individualism is
their enemy, thinking people cannot be tolerated. Haven’t you read the
new lesson books for our school children? You tell me what that is all
about? Changing our history, because the U.S. Constitution is in their
way.

The Corporate Socialist now call themselves, progressive patriots. As they try and hide their true intentions.

Hillary Clinton uncloaked herself in our 2008 campaign.

Hillary Clinton Cites History in Call For New Progressive Movement
Hillary Clinton has called upon Democrats to look back to the history
of the original progressive movement in the early 20th century for
inspiration in the building of a new progressive movement for the early
21st century.

“Back then, the American economy was dominated by
large corporate monopolies. Corruption was far too common and good
government far too rare. Women couldn’t vote, and the minimum wage,
well, that wasn’t heard of and worker rights were completely unimagined.
Back then, America was a country filled with haves and have nots — and
not enough people in between.

In response to these excesses, the progressive movement was born.
Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, the progressives busted
trusts and fought for safe working conditions and fair wages. They
created the national park system, and replaced a government rife with
cronyism with a merit-based civil service. They understood, as the great
progressive President Teddy Roosevelt once said, that ‘The welfare of
each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.’

Well, today, at the beginning of the 21st century, I think it’s time we remembered those lessons.”

Whether or not you support the presidential campaign of Hillary
Clinton in particular, her call to remember the role of progressives in
improving the civic standards in American government is worth heeding.
We citizens should stand up and do our part to revive that tradition.

(Source: HillaryClinton.Com, May 29, 2007)

So rather we like it or not, that is what Obama is doing. He is
trying to complete the Fabian Socialist dream. Which will be a
catastrophe for freedom and liberty. A world dominated by Big Government
and their “customers“. Just the latest world communists dream.

Do you understand why Sen Ted Cruz must be destroyed? Why not ask Sen
John McCain? You think the Republicans are on your side? Think again,
Either we rebuild the GOP into the model of Lincoln or we all turn into
Corporate Socialists.

Whitewater

Whitewater, popular name for a failed 1970s
Arkansas real estate venture by the Whitewater Development Corp., in
which Governor (later President) Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were partners; the name is also used for the political ramifications of this scheme.

Whitewater
was backed by the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which went
bankrupt in 1989. The controlling partners in both the land deal and the
bank were friends of the Clintons, James and Susan McDougal. Vincent
Foster, a Little Rock law partner of Mrs. Clinton, represented the
Clintons in the buyout of their Whitewater shares. Accusations of
impropriety against the Clintons and others soon surfaced, regarding
improper campaign contributions, political and financial favors, and tax
benefits. Claiming that relevant files had disappeared (they were found
at the White House in 1996) and that they had in any case lost money on
the Whitewater venture, the Clintons denied any wrongdoing.

When
Foster, now White House counsel, committed suicide (1993), however,
more questions arose. Strongly pursued in Washington, mainly by
Republicans, but largely ignored by the general public,

Whitewater was
investigated by a special prosecutor beginning in 1994 and by
congressional committees in 1995–96. Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's
investigation included testimony from Mrs. Clinton (which was the first
time a first lady was subpoenaed by a grand jury) and videotaped
testimony from the president.
In a 1996 trial, the McDougals and
Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton's successor as governor of Arkansas, were found
guilty of fraud in the case, and in another decision the former
municipal judge David Hale, who had pled guilty to fraud and had been a
witness in the McDougal trial, received a jail sentence. In yet another
trial the same year two Arkansas bankers were acquitted of some charges,
and the jury deadlocked on others. Although nothing conclusive
concerning the Clintons' involvement in the Whitewater deal was proved
in the congressional or special prosecutor's inquiries,

In early 1998, Starr won authorization to expand his investigation to include the Lewinsky scandal,
and questions about Monica Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton quickly
overshadowed Whitewater matters. However, in late 1998, when Starr
presented his case for impeachment
of the president for his attempts to conceal the Lewinsky affair, he
indicated that his office had no impeachable evidence in the Whitewater
matters. Starr resigned in Oct., 1999, and was succeeded by Robert W.
Ray, the senior litigation counsel in Starr's office. In Sept., 2000,
Ray ended the Whitewater inquiry, stating there was insufficient
evidence to prove that President Clinton or his wife had committed any
crime in connection with the failed real estate venture or the
independent counsel's investigation into it; the final report was issued
18 months later. Susan McDougal was pardoned by President Clinton in
Jan., 2001, shortly before he left office.

A
hard-edged question was posed to Hillary Rodham Clinton at her
Whitewater news conference: what about "the suggestion in the R.T.C.
memorandum . . . you and your husband knew or should have known that
Whitewater was not cash-flowing and that notes or debts should have been
paid"?
"Shoulda, coulda, woulda," the First Lady replied. "We didn't."

Some
journalists narrowed their eyes at this airy dismissal of financial
responsibility in land speculation at the place Mrs. Clinton prefers to
refer to as "northern Arkansas." My own investigative lust was instantly
replaced, however, by linguistic curiosity: Whence the reduplication
shoulda, coulda, woulda?

The order of words in this delicious
morsel of dialect varies with the user. On the sports pages of The
Washington Post of Dec. 7, 1978, Gerald Strine wrote about the New
England Patriots football team: "The Pats coulda, shoulda and woulda
been ahead of the Cowboys by at least 16-3 at halftime . . . but three
field goals were blown."

Eleven
years later, in a United Press International account of another
football game, the phrase again led with coulda, as a shamefaced kicker
was quoted: "I should have kicked the extra point, but coulda, shoulda,
woulda doesn't do it."

By the 90's, football players were fumbling
the order. Said a Notre Dame tackle, Aaron Taylor, offside on his
subject-verb agreement: "There's no excuses. Woulda, shoulda, coulda is
not going to cut it."
During the last two decades, an author told
Vernon Scott of The Hollywood Reporter he planned a "Shoulda, Coulda,
Woulda book"; a retailer opined to Investor's Business Daily about the
decline of Carter Hawley stores: "There are shoulda-beens, coulda-beens,
woulda-beens, but the fact is they didn't meet the retail revolution
that happened in the past five years." And the funk-and-roll singer
Anthony Kiedis (misidentified as a "rap singer" by the incognoscenti)
wrote and sang in 1991, "Shoulda been, coulda been, woulda been dead if I
didn't get the message going to my head."

We have here an elision
field. Elide, rooted in the Latin for "to strike out," means "to omit";
in speech, an elision is the omission of letters and sounds to produce
compressions like don't and couldn't, or as the would-be boxer played by
Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" said, "I coulda been a contender."
In
this rhyming compound, a triple elision does the hat trick: although
each elision expresses something different, when taken together, the
trio conveys a unified meaning. Shoulda, short for should have (and not
should of, which lexies call a variant but I call a mistake), carries a
sense of correctness or obligation; coulda implies a possibility, and
woulda denotes conditional certainty, an oxymoron: the stated intent to
have taken an action if only something had not intervened.

These
meanings were explored separately in a 1977 song by the country singer
Tammy Wynette, whose earlier song "Stand By Your Man" was
unintentionally derogated by Mrs. Clinton during the 1992 campaign. In
"That's the Way It Could Have Been," Ms. Wynette's chorus goes: "That's
the way it could have been [ possibility ] ./Oh, that's the way it
should have been [ correctness ] ./If I had met you way back
then,/That's the way it would have been [ conditional certainty ] ."

Lexicographers
have been tracking the individual elisions for decades. First came
woulda, translated into Standard English in Dialect Notes in 1913:
"Would a went, would have gone." Theodore Dreiser introduced coulda and
the solid woulda in his 1925 novel, "An American Tragedy": "I coulda
chucked my job, and I woulda." A 1933 book on crime used the third
elision: "You shouldda seen him."